I hope everyone's been following the discussion on animal rights and environmentalism. I continue to be impressed with the decency and thoughtfulness of the community that's gathered here. Frogfish said most of what needed to be said. The unit of analysis for conservationism is population; for animal rights it is the individual. If you ask me, animal rights is morally bankrupt in the absence of environmentalism -- not the other way around. But we should all remember: parsing the logical and ethical differences is a matter for thinkers. For doers, for activists, the job is to get things done. That …

Cows that feed solely on pasture perform a valuable service: they transform what's inedible to us -- grass -- into a rich source of protein and other nutrients. And when such cows are raised in moderate numbers, they can actually improve the health and biodiversity of grasslands. Moreover, cows evolved to eat grass, so the pasture model is clearly the most animal-friendly way to create beef. To me, the grass-fed concept exemplifies responsible agrarianism: it's energy efficient (it relies on no vast, petroleum-guzzling corn fields), it enhances rather than degrades the ecosystems it relies on, and it forces us to …

Playground bullies aren't the only ones shaking down kids for their milk money. Despite lots of recent fuss about the poor quality of school-cafeteria fare -- and mounting evidence of widespread diet-related maladies among kids -- corporate interests are still lining up for their cut of the cash the federal government and families spend on feeding kids at school. Did you want fries with that? Photo: iStockphoto The new hot "opportunity," The Wall Street Journal reported last week, is breakfast. The school market is "pretty saturated as far as lunch goes," a Kellogg marketing flack explained to the Journal. Translation: …

Eric Schlosser is serious about raising maximum hell with the fast-food industry. He's got a new book aimed at deprogramming kids from their burger, fries, and a Coke fetish (reviewed here). And now he's somehow managed to get a big-studio fictional movie made based on his classic book Fast Food Nation. Check out the trailer: Traffic meets Fast Times at Ridgemont High? Food politics goes Hollywood. Wow. I've met several young people who claim that Morgan Spurlock's wonderful Supersize Me made a big impact on their diet choices. This film could be even bigger.

One summer evening when I lived in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, I was snipping basil from the potted herb garden that I kept on the stoop in front of my brownstone apartment. Kids were playing on the sidewalk, their high-spirited shouts echoing through the dense, humid air. I absently popped a basil leaf in my mouth, savoring its flavor. You ate what? Photo: iStockphoto One kid took note. "Oooh!" he shouted. "He ate a plant!" Suddenly, seven or eight ten-year-olds were pointing and gaping at me. I had done something exotic, strange, suspect even: I had eaten plant matter. For me, …

"Edible Media" is a biweekly look at interesting or deplorable food journalism on the web. The left has always had an uneasy relationship with pleasure -- and thus with food. For every freewheeling beatnik or free-loving hippie, there must be 10 dour left-wingers who see personal pleasure as an obscene indulgence in a world wracked by war, hunger, oppression, and environmental ruin. Yet one of the most powerful critiques of consumer capitalism is that it drains life of vivid pleasure and offers instead "pleasure." A handmade dark-chocolate custard becomes a dull, corn-sweetened "chocolate" shake. Peddling boundless diversity and freedom, mass-market …

Is the sustainable-agriculture movement essentially Luddite? It's a common charge -- and a fair enough question. The Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug, perhaps industrial agriculture's greatest living apologist, deplores at every opportunity the organic movement's supposedly technophobic ways. Addressing a graduating class a few years ago at Texas A&M -- that factory for future big-ag farmers and execs -- the octogenarian fulminated against "anti-technology critics [who] argue that humankind is being poisoned by modern high-yield agriculture and should return to traditional organic methods." The great man went on: "These anti-science and -technology zealots are trying to retard -- and even stop …

With Whole Foods continuing to dazzle Wall Street with its growth and Wal-Mart vowing to become the world's No. 1 organic grocer, now would seem to be a wonderful time to be an organic farmer -- particularly one with enough acreage to supply the corporate giants. According to classical economics, when demand jumps, supply should follow, pulled up by the good's rising price. But a funny thing is happening in the certified-organic fields and orchards of California, home to about 40 percent of the nation's organic-vegetable acreage: produce is shriveling unpicked on the vine, choked by weeds and neglect. Ripe …

U.S. commercial rice crop contaminated with GM strain The U.S. government admitted last week that its commercial supply of long-grain rice has been contaminated by an illegal, untested, genetically modified strain with the warm-and-fuzzy name of LLRICE 601. The European Union, the biggest importer of U.S. long-grain rice, may decide to delay or ban imports; Japan, which buys very little U.S. long-grain rice, will now be buying none. LLRICE 601, engineered by German biotech company Bayer CropScience to withstand an herbicide, has not been approved for human consumption. U.S. rice supplies from the 2005 harvest were contaminated, even though field …

Hemp farming could be legalized in California Farmers could legally grow industrial hemp under a bill approved by the state Senate of, obviously, California. But isn't hemp, like, totally marijuana? Didn't Nancy Reagan warn us about this? No, no, says (Republican!) state Sen. Tom McClintock, in the best analogy we've ever heard: Hemp "bears no more resemblance to marijuana than a poodle bears to a wolf." The legislation would require that hemp be tested before harvesting to make sure it has only a trace amount of THC, the intoxicant in marijuana. Hemp-growing is illegal in the U.S., for all kinds …